Night Changes
by melissaeverdeen13
Summary: Jackson and April are co-parents with separate lives who just happen to live in the same house. After a 24-hour cold offers them a rare afternoon together, the absurdity of their situation comes to light. While April goes out on a date, Jackson is left to reflect on his anything but simple feelings with a bit of help from baby Harriet.


_So in typical me fashion, I wrote another Japril one-shot. This might be my last one for a while because...I think I'm going to start a multi-chapter! So we'll see how that goes. I'm very excited!_

"Who's hungry?" I ask, bouncing Harriet on my hip. I look down at her, and she's smiling at me; her mouth open in a wide grin that showcases the two teeth poking up through her bottom gums. "I think Hattie's hungry," I say, and sniffle in loudly as I spin us around in a circle.

Just as I start walking straight again, the bathroom door opens and April walks out dressed in a towel, still dripping. Unable to stop myself without endangering the baby, we end up colliding in slow motion. I keep a tight hold on Harriet and April ends up with her face in my chest and her fingers tightly gripping my waist to keep her balance.

"Oh, god!" she says, taking stutter steps away from me. "I'm sorry! I didn't see you guys coming."

I'm rendered speechless for a short moment as my eyes float over the sight of her. Her auburn hair lays in curly tendrils around her dewey, freckled shoulders and her hazel eyes are bright and clear as they blink up at me. Her lips are pink and moisturized; I know that she can be found wearing Chapstick at almost any given point in the day. Once we started kissing years ago, that wasn't hard to figure out because I'd end up wearing it, too.

These days, I don't wear it so much anymore.

"No, it's my bad," I say, then turn the baby around so she's facing out. "Actually, our fault." Punctuating my sentence, I turn my head to the side and let out three loud sneezes.

"You don't sound good," April says, her eyebrows knitting together. "Are you sick?"

I sniffle again, recovering from my powerful sneezes. "Me? Sick?" I scoff. "I don't get sick."

"Your voice sounds sick."

I clear my throat. "Must've been a frog in my throat," I say.

"Okay…" she says, eyeing me. "I'm, uh…" She looks down at herself and then back up at me, and I notice that her cheeks have flushed a brilliant red. The problem with being a redhead is that her skin tone allows her emotions to become fully showcased on her face without her having much choice in the matter. I always used to love teasing her about it, but now that's not really my place anymore. "I'm gonna go get dressed now."

"Right, right, I'll let you, uh, get to that," I say. "We're gonna go have some lunch."

"Okay."

I raise my eyebrows at Harriet once April is down the hallway and out of view, and then lift her up in the air so fast that she shrieks happily. "What are we gonna have for lunch today, bug?" I ask her, zooming her playfully down into her high chair. "How about some mac and cheese? That's a classic. Does that sound good to you? Mac and cheese and some...green beans? Ooh, green beanies. _So_ yummy."

Harriet bangs on the tray of her chair and blows raspberries with her lips, then giggles after she's done.

"You think you're so funny," I tell her, putting a pot on the stove to boil water. "You're your mama's child, that's for sure. Both thinking you're so funny." I shake my head at her. "Now, me, on the other hand. I know I'm funny."

"I'll believe that when I see it," I hear, and April comes around the corner with her wet hair brushed tame, wearing a pair of leggings and a loose, coral t-shirt.

"Hey," I say, pointing a wooden spoon at her. She sits at the breakfast bar next to where Harriet's chair is attached to it, and looks at me with a smug smile on her face. I turn back around to the stove and stare down at the water, willing it to boil though I know full well that I only just put it on.

"A watched pot never boils," April says, and I sigh and turn around to lean against the counter and look at my ex-wife and daughter.

The two of them have been living with me for the entirety of Harriet's life, and April and I are still divorced. We co-parent, and we're friends again, but it's not exactly like it was before everything happened between us. In my opinion, we'll never be able to go back like it was before we realized our feelings for each other. Those feelings clouded everything, namely our judgment, and there's no way to look at what we are without them.

I can't deny that I still feel strongly for her, but it's not something I bring up. I don't want us to fight over it, because we promised each other before the baby was even born that we wouldn't fight with her around. And lately, there isn't a time when she isn't around.

It's hard to read April. I can't tell what she feels for me or if there's still anything there at all. She always acts like everything is fine; glazing over life like nothing is allowed to be wrong, ever. We sleep in separate rooms across the house from each other, greet each other in the morning cordially, rarely sit and eat a meal or watch TV together. During the week, sometimes we barely see each other at all. Harriet goes to the daycare at the hospital, and whoever gets off first or isn't on-call will get her and take her home. On nights that I'm late at the hospital, the two of them will already be asleep when I get home, and vice versa.

It's the ultimate irony. We live together, we're raising our child together, but we're not together.

Some days when I get home from a particularly hard day, I want nothing more than to get into bed to find April already there. She used to have a sweet way of waking up just slightly when I'd crawl under the covers and reach her arms out for me with her eyes still closed. I want that back; I want to find solace in her arms at the end of a long day, rest my head on her chest over her heartbeat, and feel her fingertips ghost over my head as I fall asleep.

I can't believe I'm thinking all of this as I zone out staring at a spot on the wall just behind her. "Earth to Jackson?" she calls, snapping her fingers. "You in there?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah," I say.

"Your water's bubbling."

I spin around and turn the heat down, then pour the macaroni noodles in. I stir them so they don't stick to the bottom of the pot, then go to the fridge to get out the butter and milk.

"You're sick," April says. "You're all in your head, all zoned out. Your eyes are red and puffy, your lips are pale, and your voice sounds all stuffy." I open my mouth to argue, but she stops me. "You're sick, Jackson. And you should go lay down."

"I don't need to," I insist, getting out the ingredients. At this point, I'm starting to realize she's right because the fatigue is setting in. The only thing I've done so far today is hang out with Harriet, but my body feels like I've worked a 12-hour shift. Suddenly, like I've been hit by a train, I can hardly keep my eyes open. "I'm fine."

She stands up from her chair and comes over to me. She presses the back of her hand to my forehead, and my skin burns for an entirely different reason than my oncoming fever.

"Fever," she says.

"You can't tell by just your hand."

"It's a mom thing," she claims.

I blow air through my lips. "That's a bunch of crap."

She glares at me and then turns me around by my shoulders, after which she slips her hand up my shirt and presses her hand to my back. Her touch there makes me flinch; it's more intimate of a spot than we've touched in longer than I can remember. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"Back's hot, too," she says. "You need to go lay down, and I'll bring you soup and medicine."

"No way," I say, shaking my head. "I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine. I'm standing here…" A yawn sneaks out of me. "And I'm fine."

"Yeah, right," she says, walking a few steps backwards to stir the bubbling noodles. "Go. Lay. You shouldn't be around Hattie, anyway. You'll get little bug sick."

I can't deny her logic there, and when I look over to Harriet and see her happily sucking on her pacifier, I get a pang of guilt imagining her feeling like I do right now. I sigh and with deflated shoulders, give in. "Fine," I say. "I guess I'll go try to sleep it off."

"Perfect idea," she says. "If you need anything, holler."

"Don't worry about me," I say, throwing the words over my shoulder as I head down the hall.

"Worrying is my job," she calls back with a giggle, and I just shake my head in response.

I go to my room and lay down in bed, leaving the door open. I can hear April talking to Harriet back in the kitchen, getting her lunch ready that I had started and then helping her eat it. I smile to myself and close my eyes, and I don't think that I'm going to fall asleep until I wake up sometime later due to small sounds near my head. I open my eyes and see April in the room, setting down a glass of water and a mug of tea down on the nightstand.

"What are you doing?" I ask, and she jumps slightly.

With her hand pressed to her heart, she says, "You scared me."

"Sorry."

"I was bringing you some water and tea. You need to be drinking fluids, you know that."

I push myself up to a sitting position and don't miss the way my body aches and protests in response. I feel like I need to sleep for another 20 years. "I do know that," I say. "But you don't have to feel like you have to take care of me. I'm fine."

"I don't feel like I have to," she says, pulling at the edge of the covers so they're straight. "I want to. You know I like doing this kind of stuff.

"I know," I say, and she sits down gingerly on the edge of the bed, just far enough away to not be touching me. "But still."

She scoffs. "Jackson, it's tea and water. Well, and a little DayQuil. You don't have to be so stubborn about accepting a little help." I don't respond, and she stands up off the bed. "A shower might help with your sinuses, all that steam and stuff. I woke up feeling kind of congested, and after I got out, it was mostly gone. You should try that."

"Maybe."

"Or you could lay here and suffer, that's good too," she says, waving her hand over her shoulder as she walks out.

When she leaves, I collapse back down on my pillow and let out a long sigh with my hands covering my face. It's so hard to live with her and be platonic while still knowing every intimate detail about her, and it's even harder for those details not to rise to the surface when I'm doing something completely harmless, like listening to her try and boss me around. It's not helpful when, while she's talking about DayQuil, the only thing I can think about is the trail of freckles on her inner thigh or the way her ribs show through her skin as she lies on her back, breathing hard from what I was able to do to her.

I shake my head to clear it. Nothing about picturing her body is okay anymore, and I know that. It's just so hard to keep what I already know out of my mind.

After a while, I get tired of laying there breathing through my mouth, so I get up and get in the shower like April suggested. I stay in there for a while, just letting the water pound down on my back and the steam hopefully clear up my sinuses, and when I get out I actually do notice a difference.

I walk out into the kitchen in search of orange juice with my towel sitting low on my hips, and she's sitting on the couch with Harriet on her lap. "How're you feeling?" she asks, and I flick my gaze to the back of her auburn head. She's looking down at the baby, who's drinking a bottle of whole milk.

"Better," I say truthfully, and drink the juice fast. "The shower helped."

She turns around and, if I'm not mistaken, her eyes widen a little bit when she sees me standing there dressed in so little. She plays it cool, though, and I resist the urge to chuckle. "Oh, you got in?" she asks. I nod. "So what you're saying is, basically, that I was right." She laughs and sets her shoulders proudly, then looks at Harriet. "Daddy just admitted that I was right. We better write this one down, because you never know when it could happen again."

"Oh, shut up," I say, and put my glass in the sink. "What are you up to tonight?"

"Um," she says, running her hand over Harriet's downy baby hair. "I actually had a date planned, but now that you're under the weather, I'll stay home. I wouldn't make you watch the baby when you're sick."

My gut twists in an uncomfortable way, and my jaw involuntarily clenches. "No, you should go," I force myself to say.

She shakes her head, which makes her hair fly this way and that. "I'm not gonna leave while you're sick," she says.

"I'm fine, April," I say. "I swear. She'll be asleep, she won't be breathing my sick air that isn't even that sick, it'll be fine."

"I don't…"

"I'm her father," I remind her, and she rolls her eyes.

"I know that. Obviously."

"You should go and have fun. Don't stand the poor guy up. Me and Hattie will stay here and veg out, which is what we do best anyway. Don't let us bring you down," I say.

"You guys don't bring me down," April mutters, then sighs. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"Yes, April, I promise," I say. "When do you have to leave?"

"An hour or so. I should probably start getting ready now."

"Okay. Let me go get some clothes on, and I'll take the baby. You deserve to have a fun night." I start walking towards my bedroom, but she speaks again.

"I don't want you to think my night here wouldn't be fun, too," she says. "I just told this guy I would go, and I've already canceled on him once, and-"

"April," I say. "You don't have to explain yourself. Don't worry about it, okay?"

She bites the inside of her bottom lip, looking pensive. "Okay," she agrees halfheartedly.

I sit with the baby as April gets ready in her room, watching a sitcom I'm only half-paying attention to on TV until Hattie starts to fuss. "What is it?" I ask, picking her up and plopping her on my lap. "Diaper or dinner?" I lift her up and take in a big whiff of air by her butt, but the smell test comes back negative. "Hungry girl, then, huh? Well, you're in luck. Because your daddy can always eat. Let's go cook something up."

I bring her into the kitchen, passing April's room on the way there. Her door is halfway open, which isn't unusual, and I can hear her singing under her breath from inside. As I walk by, my eyes dart over out of habit, and my breath catches in my throat from what I see. She's standing there with her back faced towards me, pulling a dress out of her closet dressed in just a t-shirt and a pair of blue polka-dotted underwear. I haven't seen her dressed in so little in so long, and the sight makes my mouth go dry and my brain suddenly forget how to complete basic functions. I know those underwear - I've folded them a handful of times and stripped them off of her way more. I can't stop staring at her ass; I know I'm being creepy, but my feet feel like they've been cemented to the floor.

What jolts me back to reality is Hattie squirming and fussing in my arms, annoyed with me that our trip to the kitchen has been delayed. Hearing her cry, April flips around and sends her fiery hair flying, but I'm already on my way before she can see that I was standing there watching her.

I sit Harriet in her high chair and work on cooking meatballs and green beans that we'll end up sharing, and that I'll probably snack on too much later. "I'm making your favorite, Batty," I say. "Meatballs!"

"Quit calling her Batty," April says, and I look over my shoulder to see her coming out of her room in a black and white dress, heels on and hair done. She looks amazing, and I feel sick. Not because I actually am sick, either. "That's not her name, right baby?" She comes up behind Harriet and kisses the side of her face, which gets lipstick on our baby's skin. April licks her thumb and wipes it off, and my heart swells watching her do that.

"You look nice," I tell her.

She looks down at herself, opens her mouth and then second-guesses herself. She closes it, takes in a deep breath, and decides not to say anything.

"Have fun tonight," I say, stirring the meatballs.

"You making her meatballs?" April asks, ignoring my statement. I nod, and she kisses the top of Harriet's head. "Oh, buggy's favorite! She'll be so happy. Can you say 'thank you, daddy?'"

I laugh and scoff at the same time. "I think it's gonna be a while before we get that."

"Thank you," April says, and I roll my eyes. "No, really, thank you."

"For?"

"Saying I look nice," she says, a bit bashfully, then shrugs. "It's sweet of you."

"Well, I speak the truth," I say, looking down at the counter after not being able to keep my eyes on hers for very long. "You do look nice. Beautiful." I curse myself for saying the last thing, but find it hard to regret once I see the blush that floods her cheeks and travels all the way to the tips of her ears.

"Thanks," she says, ducking her head. "You know-" Cutting off her sentence, her phone rings from inside her purse, so she pulls it out and looks at the screen. "Oh, that's him. I gotta go." She gives Harriet a kiss on the head, then walks up to me and gives me a routine, habitual kiss with our cheeks pressed against each other. It takes us both a beat to realize what just happened; I see her pause at the door from my peripheral vision, her hand on the doorknob and her mouth open like she wants to explain herself. But she doesn't.

Once I hear her footsteps fade away, I let out a big breath and brace my elbows on the counter to look at our daughter. "That was a lot," I say to her. "A lot. A whole lot. Your mommy…" I turn around and season the meatballs. "Your mommy is a very confusing woman."

Harriet buzzes her lips and bangs on the high chair tray when I dump some green beans onto it. "I know, beans are very exciting," I say. I finish up the meatballs and dice them up into small enough pieces so she won't choke, then sit down at the bar next to her with my own plate where April had been sitting earlier. "Want help?" I ask, and pick up a meatball piece. She turns her head away and instead, grabs a handful of meat and shoves it in her mouth. "I see you prefer to get it done yourself," I say. "Once again, your mama's child. Or maybe that's more me. What do you think?"

She squeals; eyebrows raised and gummy smile on her face.

"I agree," I say, pointing my fork at her with a meatball on the end. "What do you think? Did I do okay on dinner?"

Harriet ignores my question and busies herself by finger-painting with the butter from the beans and sauce from the meatballs.

"You know, I think I made a pretty big mistake," I say after a while. The baby looks up at me attentively with food all over her face. "Because I'm pretty sure I still love your mom. Well, that's stupid. I know I still love her. It's pretty hard to ignore." I shake my head. "You won't tell her, right? Don't go ratting me out." She gives me a solemn look while chewing on her messy fist. "I think I can trust you," I say. "I just wish we weren't in this place. This weird place where we don't really know what we are… like we aren't romantically anything, but she'll never be meaningless to me, thanks to you." I touch her nose with my finger and she makes a soft sound. "I wish there was some way to tell her that I want things to be like they were before. Like, way before. Not during the bad parts." I rest my chin down in my palm. "Do you think there's a way?" I ask.

Harriet grabs a fistful of beans and squishes them until the seeds fall out of her chubby fingers. "I can see you feel strongly about this," I say. "It's very reassuring."

We both finish our dinner and after I clean up the dishes, I decide that Harriet needs a bath from her bout of messy eating. I scoop her up out of the chair and hold her on my hip as I get her mini bathtub into the big one and fill it up with water. As she splashes playfully and squeals with delight, I sit on the floor with my elbow rested on the lip of the tub and look at her. When she smiles, she could be April's twin. I see April's face in our little girl so strongly every day, and usually it makes me smile but right now it's just making my heart hurt.

"I shouldn't have done what I did, Hattie," I say, rinsing the suds off of her slippery body. "But I don't know what I can do to fix it now."

She speaks some gibberish at me, her eyes shining with happiness. "Da," she says, opening and closing her fingers.

"Yeah, I know," I say. "Your daddy's kinda dumb."

'Dada' had been her first word about a month ago and April pushes for her to follow up with 'mama' every day. Her feelings aren't really hurt that my name came first, but she does her best to get Hattie to say hers. So far, though, there hasn't been much luck.

I dry the baby off, get her into a new diaper, and then sit with her in the rocking chair in her room to get her to sleep. Even after her eyes close and she starts breathing deeper, I stay in the chair and rub her back while looking at her sweet little face. That lower lip pouted out is all April, along with the crazy long eyelashes. All I can see in her tonight is her mother, and I know that's because I have April on my mind. Now that the baby is asleep and the house is quiet save for the TV a couple rooms away, all I can think about is what kind of a time she's having on her date.

In my heart of hearts, I hope it's bad. I hope he's boring and that she's waiting for the moment that it's acceptable to leave. Best case scenario, she's comparing the guy to me and he's coming up painfully short. I feel a sick sort of satisfaction as I think about it, and then chastise myself for it. We aren't together. We made it clear. And even though the lines have becoming blurry lately, that's still something I have to respect.

I know the date is probably going well. And if not well, at least it's going okay. April can make any situation worthwhile; that's one of the things I love about her.

I lay Hattie down in her crib and then collect laundry from the dryer that's been waiting for someone to fold it all day. Usually April and I keep our clothes separate and only do our own, but today we were on the last of the detergent and had to combine our loads. I pull out the menagerie of clothes and deposit them into a laundry basket that I take to the kitchen counter, the place that's always been the designated spot for folding laundry.

I watch TV while I'm folding, zoning out and not really paying attention to the task at hand. It's only when I look down and see that I'm folding a pair of little purple underwear with a tiny bow at the waist and lace scallops on the leg openings that I return to reality.

The first emotion that I feel while looking at her underwear in my hands is sadness, and then I laugh at myself for it. Sad over underwear. I've really climbed to a new height. A new, pathetic height. I fold them up and start a pile, because I know there will be more. And I'm right. Throughout the rest of the load, I fold a gray, orange, pink, striped, black and blue pair and they all join in the pile with the purple. I can't help but miss the days when doing that for her was routine, normal and even expected. Now, though, when she sees that I've folded her underwear she'll probably be embarrassed and overly apologetic, and I'm not looking forward to it.

I sit on the couch for the remainder of the night and am slightly dozing off when I hear the front door open and shut. I sit up and blink my eyes to wake myself up, and then see April trying to be quiet as she kicks her heels off and sets her purse on the bench by the door. "Hey," I say softly.

"Hey," she responds, and rubs her eyes with one hand as she sniffs in. At first I think she might be crying, then I realize she's just stuffy.

"Are you sick now?" I ask, leaning forward.

She's not one to deny it, so she gives in right away and admits it, unlike me. "Yeah," she says. "Thanks to you."

"Hey, you said you were stuffy this morning too," I remind her.

"But you made it worse," she says. "God, I have the worst headache. I couldn't stop sneezing the whole way home, either. You sound a little better, though."

"Yeah, I feel okay now."

"Good. Maybe I'll just go sleep it off, then," she says, and then walks off towards her room.

I sit there and contemplate what I should do. I want to help her, but I don't want to overstep. I convince myself that it's okay, because she did the same thing for me earlier without batting an eye or questioning herself, so she deserves the same from me. I put the kettle on to make her favorite tea, and then bring it to her along with NyQuil and ibuprofen. I knock on her open door softly and she looks up from where she's sitting on her bed, wiping her makeup off with closed eyes and an open mouth.

"I brought you some treatment," I say.

"Oh, you didn't have to," she says, discarding the makeup wipe. Now her face looks fresh and clean, but she has bags under eyes that had been hiding.

"Tissues, too, snotty," I say, and set them on her nightstand. I set the tea down alongside with them and then hand her the NyQuil, which she readily takes.

"How was the baby tonight?" she asks, gesturing for me to sit down next to her. I accept her invitation, but don't get too close. I don't let our shoulders touch, and I watch her as she puts a pair of fuzzy socks on.

"She was good," I say. "She got a bath from her messy eating, then I rocked her to sleep."

"Did she eat good?"

"Always does," I say. "Takes after you."

"You got that right," April says, smiling. "Thanks for folding the laundry."

I look around and notice that the stuff I folded is already put away. That wasn't the reaction I had expected, but I'm happy about it. I like the way that it just feels normalized; like it was something I was expected to do. Something a husband should do.

"How was your date?" I ask begrudgingly.

She lets out a long breath from her mouth, mostly likely because she can't breathe through her nose. Before answering, she crawls under the cover and lies down and I make a move to get up and leave. "You don't have to go," she says. "The NyQuil just kicks in fast, so I'm getting ready. Don't wanna fall asleep sitting up." She giggles at herself. "The date was okay. I had steak."

"So it was a good night for you."

Her eyes beg to drift closed, but she fights them as she lets out a sleepy-sounding laugh. "Exactly," she says blearily, her voice growing lower and raspier from both congestion and tiredness. "Other than that…" Her pause is so long that I wonder if she's fallen asleep, but she shrugs eventually. "Nothing."

"No spark?"

Her eyes finally shut all the way. "No spark to speak of," she says. "I'm sorry, I'm…" Another long pause. "So sleepy."

"It's okay," I chuckle. "Go to sleep. Feel better in the morning."

"Night, Jackson," she says softly, and I spend a moment just looking at her and thinking about the things I wish I could do. Squeeze her wrist, kiss her forehead, or even better: climb into bed next to her and sleep there all night with her in my arms.

But I don't do any of those things. I stand up, turn off her light, and take one last glance her way. "Night, April."


End file.
